State-Run Media Rule: Don’t Let Real News Distract from Our News

May 17, 2010

RUSH: Do you remember it wasn’t long ago during the health care debate that we heard from Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who lost her seat in Congress, but that’s okay because her son is marrying Chelsea Clinton. She lost her seat in Congress because she voted at the last minute for a Clinton budget or something that her district did not want and in the next election she was sent packing. They dragged her out during the health care debate as one of the many Democrats, ‘Look, I lost my seat because of health care, I lost my seat, and I think you all ought to know that the only way you can save your seat is to vote for Obamacare.’ Well, she’s been dragged out again. They found her someplace, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, speaking with former Representative Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky about the Senate Democrat primary race in Pennsylvania. Mitchell says, ‘How does it feel? You’ve been there, you’ve been there on the other side of it, how does it feel going into one of these things? Do you see the wave coming?’

MARGOLIES-MEZVINSKY: I think they’re more prepared for it now. The Democrats were simply not prepared in ’94. They thought it was gonna not be particularly good, but that was a real shocker. Anyone in my class, the women in my class, everyone went — in a marginal district, I was in a Republican district, everyone lost their seats.

RUSH: So do you understand what she’s saying? I think they’re more prepared for it now? That’s right, that’s what she’s saying, they’re more prepared to lose. They weren’t prepared in 1994. They were simply not prepared to lose in 1994. It wasn’t going to be particularly good, but it was a real shocker to lose. But now I think the Democrats are prepared for it now. So they bring her out as an expert on losing, they bring her out as an expert on the feelings of losing. Anyone in my class, the women in my class, everyone went in a marginal district. I was in a Republican district, everybody lost their seats, the women lost their seats. (interruption) Well, I know, it wasn’t just women. And life is great after you lose, life is great, that was the previous bite from back during health care. Life’s great after you lose. Look at me, I’m still here, my son is marrying the former first daughter and she’s converting to Judaism, and life could not get any better for me. I think I heard that. I think she is. It doesn’t matter to me, but I think so. Maybe I’m confusing that with Trump’s daughter. I might be confusing it with Trump’s daughter on that. Regardless, she’s an expert in losing, (imitating Mezvinsky) ‘Oh, yeah, Democrats this year, they’re prepared to get their butts kicked. We weren’t. But they’re ready for it.’

Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Katty Kay, this is BBC, Washington reporterette on the Chris Matthews Show. Now, the Chris Matthews Show yesterday is an interesting study, especially about NBC, is a fascinating examination of the way NBC covers the news and does business, which I’ll get to here in just a second. Katty Kay was queried by Norah O’Donnell, who is the sit-in host for Chris Matthews on his syndicated show yesterday. She said, ‘The politics of this are tough. Both political parties know they need to court Hispanic voters and yet now we have two-thirds of white voters say that they support the law.’ So the template is, both parties want these voters, but the Republicans, white people support the immigration law in Arizona. How can this be?

KAY: The NBC poll, as I understand it, people actually read the contents of the law, so there was no issue about, ‘We support this in principle.’ They actually understood what the law did, and they still supported it. Interestingly, the same number of Hispanics oppose this law. And that’s the number that Republicans really need to watch, because this may well play well in these midterm elections, and it may well play well in primary elections, where they are banking on a higher percentage of whites turning out to vote. But when you get to 2012 and when you look at the longer-term demographics in this country, Hispanics are on the rise, minorities are on the rise, and they are not going to like this law, and the Republicans are simply pushing Hispanics further into the Democratic camp. There’s no doubt about that.

RUSH: Okay, so from the BBC, the Republicans are sealing their own fate by authoring the law in Arizona and by supporting it. Really? We are sealing our own fate? Despite the poll here which shows 69, 68% of the American people, not just white Americans, support the law, but somehow we are sealing our own fate. And Ms. Kay wasn’t finished. She then had this to say about the financial crisis — this is this morning, by the way, on Scarborough’s show on MSNBC. She said this about the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed.

KAY: We hear a lot after the financial crash about people taking a new look at business, looking at best practices and how can we avoid that kind of crash again and a new form of capitalism. But I wonder how real that shift is and whether, as we start to see the employment numbers grow here, and as we start to see the stock market do better, whether actually corporations won’t just go back to their old ways and think we’re going to be focused on the bottom line, and whether almost the crash has not been long enough for corporations to have a real adjustment here.

RUSH: Oh, she’s terribly worried, ladies and gentlemen, terribly upset, terribly worried that the financial crisis wasn’t bad enough. It certainly wasn’t bad enough to change American capitalism forever, it wasn’t bad enough to get the corporations, the evil corporations to forget to focus on the bottom line. Bottom line capitalism, I mean it’s Satanic, is it not? And that damn recession, it just wasn’t big enough, it wasn’t big enough to kill capitalism, and she’s terribly upset. Now, about this show in general, news analysts at NBC are ignoring the news. I think what they teach people at NBC is don’t let the real news distract you from NBC’s news. There is NBC’s news, and then there is real news, and you at NBC, no matter what, if it’s MSNBC or NBC Nightly News or your primetime show, you are to ignore the real news and forever promote NBC News.

Yesterday on Chris Matthews Sunday without Chris Matthews, Norah O’Donnell kicked off what I consider here a little experiment. NBC analyzes the news ignoring the news. The first item, they literally discussed Obama as a unifier, and they had a roundtable discussion of Obama as a unifier. Now, that’s not real news, that is NBC News, but it’s not real news. Because Obama is the greatest divider, he is the single greatest most polarizing president we’ve ever had, at least in my lifetime, but to have a roundtable discussion on Obama as a unifier? Next item. They had a discussion, Attorney General Eric Holder might challenge the Arizona law. That’s not the real news. That’s NBC News. The real news is Holder has not read the law. So we have an attorney general who is going to perhaps challenge a law he has not read. The top cop, the top lawyer in the country has not read the law that he is going to challenge, but NBC News is. ‘Holder might challenge the law.’ And then the panel chipped in, they were asked if Obama’s personal popularity would help liberal incumbents in the 2010 elections, they had a panel discussion on that. That is NBC News. The real news is that in the last three elections, Obama’s popularity is 0-for-3: New Jersey; Virginia; Scott Brown, Massachusetts.

Somebody tell me where there are Obama coattails. Somebody tell Arlen Specter. Arlen Specter wants Obama to come in and campaign for him and Obama is saying, essentially, ‘I’m not going to do that, I won’t put up with you, you’re on your own, on your own.’ So Sestak is up a couple of points, margin of error in this — (interruption) yeah, I know, one poll says one point, another poll says two and a half or three points or whatever, but Specter, he wants Obama in there, Obama’s not going to go in there. Now, if Specter was still a Republican, he’d be in there defending him, but Obama is not going to go in there because Obama knows that most of the Democrat Party looks at Specter as not a genuine Democrat. Sestak is. So it’s a no-win, I don’t care what happens in that race, Obama can’t win, and yet on the Chris Matthews Sunday show they discussed Obama’s popularity and how and if it would help liberal incumbents in the 2010 election.

Now, if you think NBC News is exclusive to NBC, wrong. This is exactly how it’s done at CNN, this is exactly how it’s done at the New York Times, this is exactly how it’s done at CBS, ABC, USA Today, the Washington Post. USA Today has a story about all of the magnificent Obama achievements and yet voters are unappreciative. There aren’t any magnificent Obama achievements. There is a trail of destruction and you can only call those achievements if you are a dyed-in-the-wool leftist or statist. This is why in part, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a perfect climate for EIB to sprout and grow, because we deal with news as it is, we deal with reality. They alter it, change it, ignore it. They’re losing viewers, ad pages, ad revenue. Is it any wonder why?